Erica's Stitches

You can never have too many bags, right?  I hope so because my bag collection keeps getting bigger. In my quest to use yarn up stash yarn, my felting wool is almost gone and I have a new yarn bag. I'll use this to hold knitting projects and use the last of the felting yarn to make pot holders or coasters. Meanwhile, I've been fusing plastic.  It turns out my first experiments with this were a year ago .  I'm surprised it took me this long to get back to it.  The bag at the top is my new lunch bag modelled after a brown paper bag.  Hopefully it will last longer and be more durable. This fused collection of bags from many stores is one side of a tote bag. The other side is my attempt at weaving and fusing.  Ok, ok, enough bags for now.  I'll get back to some serious stitching soon.

Here are 2 brooches I've made from this book .  It's full of crafts recycling different items.  So, what did I recycle? A plastic bread bag. And a plastic shopping bag. Other items that went in to the brooches are wire, thread, buttons, beads and sequins.  Although the main body of the brooch is made of plastic bag it didn't use that much more of the bag.  I'm going to have to make alot more brooches or find another way to reuse the rest of the plastic. 

I'm creating bags out of the sheets of fused plasitc bags I made earlier . But first, I had to try stitching on the plastic. Yes, I can with a really sharp needle.  The plastic fabric is not like I expected.  It is surprisingly strong and doesn't tear.  It is supple, yet not as pliable as normal fabric.  That makes it harder to stitch on in the center of a big sheet.  But along the edge its easier. Also, once you stick the needle in there is a hole, whether you wanted it there or not.  So, I had to be very careful.  I ended up using the running stitch exclusively and used simple designs.  But, sometimes the stitched lines are not as straight as I would have liked. I added some sequins and spangles. The straps of the bags are the seams of some old black jeans. For one of the uglier pieces I simply added as zipper and sewed up the seams to make a bag.  Actually, it was my first zipper so I shouldn't say "simply".  I di...

I'm behind.  I've had a self-imposed deadline of the end of summer for many projects and they are not done.  So, I've been trying harder.  The result - finished pieces? No, the result is sore wrists so I stopped stitching last week and won't be stitching again for a few more days. So, I've had to find other ways to amuse myself.  I'm machine quilting and I tried fusing plastic bags.  There are many tutorials in books and on the web and I have no shortage of plastic bags so I thought I'd try. At first the iron was too hot and the result had holes and was distorted and bumpy.  Still, I like the result.   Ghostly echos of familiar logos show through the fused plastic. As I adjusted the iron temperature each attempt made better and better "fabric". I'm thinking of making bags.  Or book covers. This one was a gigantic clear pillow-case bag with some cut up bread bags inside.  Interesting results and some interesting "fabric...